The Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies (CAS) training program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is designed to promote the development of promising postdoctoral research fellows as independent investigators and future University faculty members who will investigate the pathogenesis of alcoholism and alcohol abuse using modern molecular medicine, biochemical and imaging techniques. Training of the postdoctoral fellows will be individualized with the most important component being the research conducted by the trainee in the faculty mentor's laboratory. In addition to hand's-on alcohol research, additional training will include didactic courses, seminars and conferences, activities on responsible conduct of research and other training as needed to prepare fellows for independent research. The training faculty will consist of 14 funded investigators from multiple departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The faculty has a documented history of close interaction and collaboration. The trainees will benefit from the unique strengths of alcohol research at the University of North Carolina, which include the CAS with its research cores, UNC-Neuroscience Center, a research-oriented Mental Health Research Center with its research cores in Psychiatry, a CTSA and the Program in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. The training program will be directed by Dr. Fulton T. Crews with the assistance of three senior alcohol researchers, Drs. Clyde Hodge, Kathy Sulik and Leslie Morrow, who will constitute the Training Program Advisory Committee. The program proposes six post-doctoral fellow slots. Trainees will receive two years of research training with the possibility of a third year and with external support sought for later years. This institutional training grant will promote intensive training in molecular, biochemical and imaging techniques and basic pathophysiology in a stimulating environment leading to broadly trained independent investigators capable of adapting to the rapid advances in research in the 21st century.